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AG won’t seek the removal of utility regulator Robert Burns

AG won’t seek the removal of utility regulator Robert Burns

“The Attorney General has failed the Arizona people,” Woodward said Friday. “The conflict-of-interest law that pertains to ACC commissioners is not contingent on Burns’ intent or excuses but whether or not he is conflicted. The record clearly shows that Burns was a registered lobbyist for a telecommunications group whose members have business before the ACC, and that Burns was registered lobbyist both before and after his election. That makes him ineligible to hold office.”

“Our office does not have reason to believe that Commissioner Burns is usurping, intruding into, or unlawfully holding or exercising the office of Corporation Commissioner,” Assistant Attorney General Brunn “Beau” Roysden wrote Friday.

Burns was elected in 2012 and in 2013 began his term on the five-member commission that regulates utilities.

Burns joined a telecommunications trade group, the Digital Arizona Council, to support a bill in the 2012 Legislature. He resigned from the Digital Arizona Council after he took office as a utility regulator in 2013, according to a letter he provided The Arizona Republic, but an affiliated group called Arizona Telecommunications and Information Council continued to list him as a lobbyist.

Late last year, when fellow commissioner Susan Bitter Smith was facing an attorney general’s investigation into her work as a lobbyist for a cable television group, which is not regulated by the commission, commission officials realized Burns was still listed as a lobbyist and attempted to remove that designation.

“I felt like there really was no problem,” Burns said Friday, adding the decision was a relief.

Woodward said that Burns was ineligible to take office because he didn’t resign from the group until after taking office.

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Michael Keeling, an attorney for the Arizona Telecommunications and Information Council, told the Arizona secretary of state in a Sept. 11 letter that Burns had asked to be removed as a lobbyist before he took office as a commissioner.

The Corporation Commission regulates gas, water, telecommunications and electrical utilities, in addition to other duties. A state law prevents commissioners from serving if they have an interest in entities regulated by the commission.

“Our investigation did not find evidence that Commissioner Burns had a relationship with ATIC that would disqualify him under (Arizona law),” Roysden wrote. “Merely being listed as an authorized lobbyist with the Secretary of State is insufficient to establish a violation (of the law).”

The letter sent to Burns and Woodward said that no evidence was found to contradict Burns’ claim that his registration as a lobbyist for ATIC was “simply an administrative oversight.”

It said Burns “at most” coordinated with ATIC during the 2012 legislative session and that ended with the session in May that year, well before he was elected to the commission.

“The Attorney General has failed the Arizona people,” Woodward said Friday. “The conflict-of-interest law that pertains to ACC commissioners is not contingent on Burns’ intent or excuses but whether or not he is conflicted. The record clearly shows that Burns was a registered lobbyist for a telecommunications group whose members have business before the ACC, and that Burns was registered lobbyist both before and after his election. That makes him ineligible to hold office.”